


Keep me all together

by claquesous



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst and Porn, Blow Jobs, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Snowballing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 17:38:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17268488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/claquesous/pseuds/claquesous
Summary: He's figured out by now that what Ren calls testing is nothing short of torture.





	Keep me all together

**Author's Note:**

> Snoke is a dick. It's mostly implied, but Snoke abuses Kylo Ren physically and emotionally.
> 
> This doesn't really fit with TLJ emotionally if you look too closely. So... don't.

“You look like shit,” comes out of Hux's mouth before he can consider whether it might get him killed right now.

But Ren just sags against the door to Hux's quarters. The hollows under his eyes are a greasy violet. The bacta strip bisecting his face seems to have sunk into his skin, maybe deeper. It occurs to Hux that Ren’s probably lucky he can still use both eyes.

He crosses the room, strokes a thumb over the wreckage of Ren's cheek. His eyelids flutter even as he flinches. At a loss, he asks, “Are you sick?”

“Not physically,” Ren says cryptically.

Hux follows the wound over his jaw, resisting the urge to press his finger into Ren's jawbone to see if it's all still there. The bacta strip trails out of sight, wide enough to suggest several inches more of the wound. He plucks at Ren's collar, trying to see how far it goes.

“Then what? You should be healing.” Hux's hand falls away. Ren's head twitches after him, his eyes unfocused. “You're a mess.”

“I know,” Ren creaks, jerking back to life. He digs the heels of his hands into his eyes and they both wince. “Fuck, I know, I just—the Supreme Leader is—testing me, and—”

“Lie down,” Hux interrupts. He's figured out by now that what Ren calls testing is nothing short of torture.

Ren sways visibly as he obeys, sitting on the edge of Hux's bed.

“Why is he testing you?” Hux asks, turning Ren's chin up to study his ruined face.

Ren looks away, ducking his head. “You saw what she did to me. She could have killed me.”

“It does seem like she might have come close,” Hux agreed coldly. “A centimeter either way and you'd be missing an eye.”

“I know,” Ren whines, hunching his shoulders. “I didn't even draw blood. I thought—I tried not to cheat, this time. Shit,” he gasps, his breaths getting tighter and quicker.

“Is this just about her?” Hux asks. “Did something else happen?”

Ren's loud breaths stop. “Like what?”

Hux doesn't answer. The more he leaves to the imagination, the more Ren tends to forget he can read minds.

Finally, “I killed Han Solo.”

“The... old Rebellion smuggler?” Hux rifles through the mess of memories from the last several days and finds almost nothing relevant. “The ship on Starkiller…” Hux only saw the names of the ship and its alleged captain in reports days later, on his feverish crusade to find someone other than himself to blame for the Starkiller Shitshow.

“That was his, yeah. So now it's mine.”

Hux meets Ren's abruptly defiant gaze, searching for a contradiction to what he thinks he's hearing.

Ren is silent for a very long moment, then drops his reddened eyes. “He was my father.” His voice rattles in his raw throat.

“Ah,” Hux says unnecessarily. Ren really does look like someone made him run a marathon while being violently interrogated. Hux supposes it's possible that's exactly what happened. He's still physically a force to be reckoned with—it’ll take more than a week of Snoke’s bullying to change that—but his eyes look bruised and sunken, his cheeks hollowed out. His mouth is bitten red and hanging ajar with a deep exhaustion. Something is wrong with him.

“I take it Snoke told you to do it?”

“Not exactly, but…” Ren's lip curls. “What else was I going to do? Turn him to the dark side?”

“What indeed,” Hux murmurs. Hacking away at one’s emotions like the Sith seem sworn to do, especially when one is as dependent on and inextricable from them as Ren, seems willfully reckless to him. “What were your tests?”

Ren stiffens. “I can't—”

Hux silences him with a look. They've had this argument a dozen times, and Hux always wins.

“I haven't slept,” Ren finally sighs.

“For—since Starkiller?”

Ren nods.

“Bloody hell, what good does he think that will do?” Hux demands wearily.

Ren shakes his head, blinking thickly. “Forget it. I finished it, he said I'm done.”

Hux bristles. “Just because you are by some miracle still standing doesn't mean what that shriveled old prick did to you was necessary or productive.”

“It was,” Ren tells his boots fervently.

Revulsion washes up thick and corrosive on Hux's tongue. The only reason he does not say, “I'll kill him” aloud is the distress it will cause Ren. That wouldn't usually stop him, but he looks as fragile as Hux has ever seen him. Instead, “What else?”

Ren looks up at him cautiously. He knows Hux is close to losing it.

“Ren. What else?”

His eyes sink shut, long enough that Hux half expects him to keel over fast asleep. He forces his eyes back open and rolls up one sleeve of his tunic. Only a few inches of skin show, but it's enough. Ren's wrist is by turns mottled purple and flayed raw. The greasy sheen of fresh damage flips some switch in Hux, and his energy converts from heat to movement. He starts to pace, and he starts to think.

“Hux,” Ren starts, but Hux turns on him.

“No,” he spits. “That bag of womprat dicks has nothing to back up his insults and manipulation.” Ren tries and fails to interject. “ _You_ are his power.”

Ren flushes, which Hux doesn't know how to interpret. “I don't know a tenth of what—”

“Of what he claims to know, I'm sure,” Hux sneers.

“It's not just that,” Kylo insists. “I'm weak. In spirit, in mind—”

“Pfassking garbage,” Hux says. “He's been whispering in your ear since you were—what, ten?”

“Eight,” Ren says quietly.

He should leave it there. He's made his point. “He's been grooming you to accept his manipulation since you were  _eight years old_ , of course you don't see it. You need to trust me, Ren.” Hux bullies Ren's knees apart, takes his chin in hand, and gets up in his face. “Kylo.”

He avoids Hux's eyes but leaves his chin in his hand. “In any other situation, I would,” he says. It floors Hux to realize that he's telling the truth, or thinks he is. “But not this.” His voice skids to a hoarse whisper. “Not the Force.”

“The Force,” Hux spits, shoving Ren away. “Why does no one in the karking galaxy have any sense at all when it comes to the Force?” He glares at Ren, who does not object. “Information is valuable. To our knowledge, that is all Snoke has, yes?”

“It's not just—”

“ _Yes_ _?_ ” Hux snarls.

“Fine,” Ren grumbles.

“But if we can't  _acquire_ information from a source, that source is of no further use to us.”

“He knows I—would be crushed under the weight of it, all at once,” Ren insists, Snoke's elegant words sticking clumsily in his throat.

“He's only feeding you enough scraps to keep you tame,” Hux snaps. “Critical thinking isn't really your strong suit, but fucking hell.”

Ren stands abruptly, sending Hux stumbling backward a few steps. Ren has mere centimeters on him (vertically), but he’s making it seem like five stories.

Until he coughs and doubles over retching. Hux reaches up automatically to steady him by the shoulders. Nothing comes up, which relieves Hux, since he's directly in the line of fire, but it also makes him suspect that Snoke has been starving him.

“You idiot,” Hux grumbles, struggling not to shout over his roaring pulse. “Sit down. And try not to vomit  _in_ the bed.” He tosses Ren a towel from the fresher as he comms medbay for an excessive quantity of bacta. And an urgent care droid, while they're at it.

Ren looks truly panicked, which Hux pretends doesn't scare him. “I can't—”

“Please,” Hux dismisses him. “If he asks, I insisted on medical attention when you fainted on duty.”

“He doesn't need to ask,” Ren says miserably. “He knows.”

“Excellent,” Hux says viciously. “No explanation necessary then.”

Ren gives him a pitifully reproachful look, like this is somehow Hux's fault. Hux is long out of sympathy—Ren slapped the chains on himself and still refuses to let Hux pick the locks—but the peculiar mix of entreaty and defeat stings.

Hux heaves a tired sigh. “You need medical attention, Ren. If that’s any indication of the rest of you.” He gestures at Ren’s exposed wrist. Ren looks down at his lap, but doesn’t protest again.

Undressing Ren is a painful process. He goes pale when Hux shucks off a pant leg too violently. Hux would wonder how he got the clothes on in the first place, but it's immediately clear by the smell that he hasn't taken them off in days. Nothing's broken; no doubt that would be too great an inconvenience to Snoke. But Ren's whole body is covered in broad swathes of raw, blistering flesh, and judging by the sound he makes when Hux tries to steady him by the arm, the bruising is not limited to what he can see.

Hux tries not to go into a second tier of hysterics. It's difficult.

The droid arrives, and Hux cheerfully ignores it in favor of shepherding Ren into the fresher. He turns on the shower, because he's a fucking general and can use however much water he bloody well pleases, but Ren shrinks away from the hot water. Hux only manages to get him to concede a sonic by threatening to turn him out into the corridor naked.

Luckily, the droid doesn't ask questions, and instead of dunking Ren in a bacta tank, gives him a shot that does effectively the same thing. It even schedules its own memory wipe after it leaves Hux's quarters, based on Kylo Ren's medical history, or lack thereof. (Hux loves droids.)

The droid neglects to mention that that the shot will knock Ren out immediately, but Hux needed time to think and it's his bedtime anyway. He curls up behind Ren, buries his nose in his hair, and falls asleep before it occurs to him to move.

* * *

 

Hux wakes abruptly to Ren panicking that he's overslept whatever appointment he had with Snoke. He looks better, but still rather like he's been trampled by a large, fire-breathing animal.

Hux props himself up on his elbows, watching Ren critically. His clothes don't seem to cause him as much agony, but more bruises have bloomed around his neck and across his ribs. Hux narrows his eyes. He knows he has no chance of persuading or overpowering Ren, even in this state, or he would insist that he stay in bed or at least submit to medical attention. His impotence rankles.

“I'll be fine,” Ren says irritably.

“Fuck off,” Hux snaps.

“I wasn't listening,” he grumbles. “You're just loud.”

Hux turns his back on Ren. He doesn't go back to sleep.

* * *

 

Ren knows Snoke has missed nothing long before he sets foot on the  _Supremacy_. He breathes deeply, trying not to hyperventilate, but his chest goes icy with a shot of adrenaline.

Although the  _Finalizer  _and the  _Supremacy_ are in orbit around the same planet, getting from one to the other is more complicated than sneaking past R2. His return trip, on six more hours of sleep, highlights with humiliating clarity what an idiot he'd been to try to make the trip unnoticed.

When he finally turns up in Snoke's audience chamber, it's not like he has to explain where he's been. The mask is an irony, Ren realizes in muted, resigned horror, that amuses Snoke.

_Nothing stands between me and your thoughts_ , Snoke whispers, his satisfaction loud and clear.  _Especially not a handmade lump of fake leather and mediocre metalwork_.

Ren almost takes it off then and there. Instead he kneels, places his lightsaber on the floor before him, and bows his head.

“Forgive me, master.”

“Oh, get up,” Snoke snaps. “We have more important things to discuss than your fucking our rabid dog.”

Ren stands, his concealed face stinging. Again he's underestimated Snoke. Another foul wave of understanding rolls over him, and he sees another layer of self-involvement peeled away as he realizes he thought Hux cared for or about him.

“What do you want?”

Snoke cackles. “Lost your faith in him already, have you?”

Ren grinds his teeth. Every time, he falls prey to Snoke's pretty, double-edged words, and every time, Snoke mocks him for it even as he rewards him.

“Your tests will resume, in a less… aggressive fashion,” Snoke says, and Ren forgets Hux immediately. “You have proven mastery of your body, but your mind is in need of... fortification.”

“Please, teach me,” Ren intones, wondering if Snoke will teach him how to shut out his own prying eyes.

Snoke's gravelly chuckle answers this question. “In time, my young apprentice. But for now, you have no need of secrets.”

* * *

 

Snoke very conspicuously does not forbid or even discourage further dalliances with Hux, so Ren stays away, certain it's a test. He can feel the buzz of Hux's anxiety gradually rising in pitch, and he pretends to ignore it.

Snoke talks him through building up mental defenses, which he immediately and effortlessly sweeps aside, time and time again. Ren can't decide whether he's actually trying to teach him or just seizing the opportunity to erode his psyche further.

The only way Ren can gain any ground is by attacking first, and he gives up on that the third time he gets a face full of Force lightning for his trouble. He's almost proud that he was able to get in at all, but he barely has anything to show for it: a handful of memories of creatures that look like Snoke might have once. All it does is convince Ren that Snoke's horrible visage is a result of the Dark Side's corruption or some kind of accident and not simply the unfortunate birthright of some obscure humanoid species. He hopes for his own sake it was an accident.

Whether or not it was Snoke's intention to isolate him, at least the freshest layer of Ren's mental topsoil doesn't have much Hux in it. The last thing he wants is to hand Snoke a gift-wrapped opportunity to trash the closest thing he has to intimacy. He doesn't even let himself acknowledge his gratitude for this until Snoke reluctantly and unenthusiastically proclaims he's finished poking and prodding and strategically destabilizing Ren's mind. He knows he has no secrets, but it's easier to pretend otherwise holed up in his dim quarters.

In the end, though, it's easier to pretend in Hux's quarters.

After the scavenger starts haunting his waking hours and tries to fucking  _shoot_  him, the scales tip ponderously out of solitude's favor and he finds himself once again on the  _Finalizer_.

* * *

 

Hux nearly stabs Ren when he comes home to the alarmingly huge shadow of an unannounced guest. His monomolecular is audibly scraping the course fabric of Ren's tunic by the time Hux realizes with a delirious giggle who he's about to impale.

“Fuck me, don't  _do_ that,” Hux wheezes, sagging against the door.

Ren traps him there, planting his hands on either side of Hux's head. Hux can't help but smirk as Ren presses him into the door, nosing coyly at his throat.

“Don't be shy,” Hux admonishes quietly, his hand coming up to cup the back of Ren's head. It's incriminatingly tender and he doesn't even notice.

Ren's personality is back, Hux is relieved to note. When asked if he's been to medbay at all, Ren just bites Hux's lip and yanks petulantly, already tearing at his shirt.

“Where's the mask?” Hux asks, unable to suppress his curiosity. He tongues at the split in his lip that Ren has reopened.

Ren watches his tongue raptly, his face unreadable. Instead of chewing on Hux, though, he says, “Gone.”

“For good?” Hux asks. “Why?”

Ren grabs him by the shoulders and slams him against the wall. Hux subsides with a moan as Ren starts to suck at his neck.

Hux curls a hand around the back of Ren's neck and pets the wispy hair there, scratching his nails over Ren's scalp.

“Are you—”

Ren silences him with a messy kiss. He wraps one enormous hand around Hux's throat. His naked, slightly sweaty palm feels harshly intimate. He doesn't even squeeze. It still gets Hux's heart rate up, but not into the panicked range.

“We are going to talk,” Hux murmurs when Ren drops to his knees. “Sooner or later.”

Ren glares up at him. “Later, if you want to get off,” he growls.

“Was that a threat?” Hux asks, intrigued.

Ren just opens Hux's pants and slurps his dick down like the sloppy whore he usually is.

“You ambushed me just to suck my cock?” Hux asks, endeared. “It’s only been a week, and suddenly you can't be left alone or you'll get  _bored  _and  _destructive_.”

Ren wraps one arm around Hux's thighs and hooks the fingers of his other hand in his waistband, effectively immobilizing his hips. He laps gently at the head of Hux's dick, and speaks, careful to tease him with every syllable.

“I'll be destructive either way. If I'm bored, it's your fault.”

Hux smirks down at him. “Whenever you're ready, darling.”

Ren takes this as the challenge it was meant to be. He doesn't fuck around. He chokes himself on Hux's dick repeatedly. He's like an over-enthusiastic virgin trying to impress an experienced lover, except that he knows better, and he doesn't stop when his eyes water and his throat closes up.

Under his dogged attentions, Hux is writhing, moaning, and pulling Ren's hair in no time. He'd be embarrassed if Ren didn't look equally wrecked. His face is red and streaked with tears. Hux brushes his finger along the newly bared scar across his face, smearing tears rather than wiping them away.

Ren's eyes close. He looks so peaceful, even as his throat works furiously to expel the intrusion of Hux's cock. Ren takes him all the way down again, and fresh tears spill down the trails of the others.

Hux can't do anything but cling to Ren's hair, press his nose into his abdomen, and come down his throat with a strangled groan.

He's barely returned to himself when Ren bodily picks him up and tosses him into bed. He crashes after Hux with no restraint whatsoever.

“Bloody hell,” Hux hisses. He yanks his arm free of Ren's bulk. “If you'll remember, only one of us is a hundred kilos of anger management issues and unlimited rations.”

Ren won’t be distracted even by bickering. He leans in low and slides heavy, warm hands up under Hux's shirt. “I'm going to  _ruin_ you,” he whispers against his mouth.

Hux shivers. He tries vainly to buck Ren off of him. He'd put up more of a fight if he wasn't so fucking relieved to have his Ren back. His impulsive, reckless brute sniffing at his throat. Ren subdues him so easily he barely seems to notice Hux’s half-assed struggling. Hux's heart is loud in his ears as Ren finds his pulse and gnaws delicately at it, little pinching bites that leave tiny, dark bruises.

He unwraps Hux like an overeager teenager, fumbling and snapping off buttons in his haste to get at Hux's skin. A breathy little noise crawls out of Hux's throat when Ren's mouth finally finds a nipple and sucks on it.

“What's gotten into you?” Hux says fondly as Ren yanks his pants off. “Where have you been, anyway?”

Ren doesn't answer, which is a red flag, if rather faded from overuse.

“Ren,” Hux says again, trying one more time for lightness and civility before getting unpleasant.

“I've been training,” Ren barks. He glares up at Hux, warning him not to push it.

“Ah, so you're here for the positive reinforcement Snoke won't give you,” Hux sniffs. “You'll have to earn it.”

Ren grabs Hux behind the knees and folds him in half, startling him. “I will,” he hisses. He has the lube out of nowhere and starts working Hux open with no preamble but his first orgasm.

He’s not gentle or slow. There's a dark intensity to everything he does. Hux’s mouth falls open and he lets the noises come as they will, and Ren notices, chases after more with the movements of his hands, but he doesn't seem to care. It seems more like he's satisfying a ravenous hunger than savoring a good meal.

Of course, none of this matters to Hux's prostate, and he's starting to get impatient. He gives Ren a significant look when his dick starts to fill out against his stomach. “That’s your cue, sweetheart.”

Ren snarls and bites the inside of his thigh viciously.

“Fuck,” Hux snaps. “Pissy, aren’t we?”

Ren pins Hux’s knees up against his chest with what seems like most of his considerable body weight. Hux tries not to moan on principle. It doesn’t work.

There’s a charged, silent moment before Ren’s pushing roughly into him. It’s a tight fit, and it’s  _delicious_. Hux spills the moan immediately this time, and Ren starts fucking him like he  _wants_ it to hurt.

“Fuck,” tumbles out of his mouth in a groan. Despite his taunting, a week is longer than ideal between fucks for Hux, too. He reaches up and tangles a hand in Ren’s hair, pulling gently but mostly just anchoring himself. Ren’s rictus of determined fury loosens a little and his hips stop driving into Hux with quite such brutal force.

“Don’t you  _dare_ ,” Hux threatens, pulling Ren’s hair hard.

Ren’s face softens into a smirk. He turns his face into Hux’s thigh and bites him, pulling and letting the skin drag obnoxiously through his teeth. At Hux’s noise of inextricable pain and pleasure, he grins and sits back to fuck him with possibly even more force than before.

“Fuck,” Hux groans raggedly. “Ren.  _Kylo_.” He can’t move, and he doesn’t want to, because Ren’s shoving his cock right into his prostate with every thrust and he’s hurtling too fast toward his second orgasm and his dick is  _not  ready_ for this, but it’s happening anyway. He barely has time to sob out a warning before he’s spurting all over his stomach.

Ren leans forward over him, his hair tickling Hux’s lips. Hux crests the wave of pleasure slowly, and then all at once his body is screaming with each thrust. Ren finally spills into him, growling with satisfaction.

Something between Ren's shoulders comes loose as he pulls out, but his eyes are still burning like he's looking for a fight. He flops onto his back, close enough that Hux can still feel the heat coming off his heaving chest, but his energy recedes. He spits a wisp of hair out of his mouth.

Hux reaches over and draws a finger idly down his heaving chest, watching muscle flutter under his touch. “What's your problem?”

Ren glances over at him, as if noticing his presence for the first time.

Hux scowls. “Well, at least clean up your mess,” he suggests, nodding at his come-splattered stomach.

Ren has to twitch back a smile. “Isn’t that your mess?”

Hux shrugs. “You made me do it.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Ren asks, leaning over him.

The kiss feels like their first in weeks. It’s definitely the first one of the night that involves any communication at all. The indulgent sweeps of Ren’s tongue are deep and lazy, slow enough for Hux to bask in and reciprocate the overarching theme of “I’ve missed you.”

Hux isn’t ready when Ren pulls back, and he’s sure he looks embarrassingly bereft, dazed and wet-mouthed.

“I destroyed it,” he says quietly, leaving a stepping-stone trail of kisses down Hux’s chest. “The mask.” He dips his head to swipe his tongue through the mess on Hux’s stomach.

“Why?”

Ren makes a show of enjoying the taste of Hux’s come, leaving his stomach cold and tingling. Ren smirks up at him and thrusts his tongue into Hux’s navel. Hux jumps and accidentally drives a knee up into his stomach.

“Fuck,” Ren coughs, laughing.

“You deserved that,” Hux says heartlessly, but he’s smiling.

Ren shrugs. He licks his lips ostentatiously and hauls himself up to kiss Hux again. Hux is expecting the residual hint of come on his tongue, but Ren takes him by surprise by thrusting a huge glob of it into Hux’s mouth with his tongue.

Hux moans without meaning to, letting Ren kiss him obnoxiously. They bicker, shoving the come back and forth, but finally Hux swallows since it's clear Ren doesn't mean to. Instead, he licks up what's leaked out from between their mouths. It's so messy and lewd that Hux is distantly surprised he's enjoying it so much  _after_ the orgasm.

“You're disgusting,” Hux admonishes.

Ren flinches at this, his chin twitching down in time with a half-blink. Compared to the emoting he does when he's upset, it's subtle, but Hux knows better when Ren tries to pretend it didn't happen.

Hux's jaw clenches as Ren rolls off of him, avoiding his eyes.

“What has he done to you,” Hux says. It's not a question.

Ren doesn't answer. Hux sits up, his pulse already picking up.

“Kylo,” he tries again, his voice soft. “Come here.”

He still has his back to Hux, but his chest rises and falls with exaggerated care.

Hux wants to scream at him. Wants to beat his fists against Kylo's chest until it cracks open and all the things he won't tell Hux come spilling out. He wants to march onto the  _Supremacy_  and shoot Snoke point blank in the face. He wants to impale Snoke's head on one of the Praetorian guards’ own pikes and present it to Kylo as a gift, still dripping ichor, black or gold or maybe just red—who knows what kind of monster Snoke is.

Instead, Hux curls around Kylo's back. He curls an arm around his neck and pulls until Kylo rolls, quiescent, into his arms. His hot breath is a comfort at Hux’s collarbone.

Hux plays with his hair absently even as he sketches and discards plans to have Snoke killed, undermined, disgraced.

Anything to break his hold on Kylo.

Kylo must hear him. Without the distractions of conversation or combat, his mind gravitates toward the white noise of others’ thoughts. But he doesn’t tell Hux to stop, to let it go.

Anything.

 


End file.
